Special Moments in the Jitterbugs Room

This week the children in Jitterbugs celebrated Literacy Day. The growth of literacy skills is a vital part of children’s overall development. It is the foundation for doing well at school, socialising with others, developing independence, managing money and working. However, before children learn to read and write, they need to develop the building blocks for literacy – the ability to speak, listen, understand, watch and draw.

To support and encourage these skills the children engaged in a variety of activities including:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Since the introduction of fruit baskets in the room the children have been discussing healthy food and ‘sometimes’ food. Veenu decided to extend on this by reading the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar.’ The children listened to the story, discussed the different food they could see and developed their storytelling abilities through talking about their favourite fruits. This also facilitated their growth in other areas such as colour recognition, numeracy (counting the fruit) and building relationships with their peers and educators.

Writing on Salt

The children are always given opportunities to explore ideas using imagination, creativity and play. This week we used recycled boxes, coloured paper and salt to extend on their interest in sensory play. The children used their fingers to draw on the salt, using their sense of touch, taste and sight to further explore. The educators engaged in conversations with the children to develop their language skills and support their understanding of the world and the environment around them.